


The Ai-Rrival Cyberse

by Sapphiremoonlight1



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Dark Fluid, Gen, Hand wavey magical nonsense, Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:07:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23177455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphiremoonlight1/pseuds/Sapphiremoonlight1
Summary: What do you get when you mix an arm, a jealous Kuriboh and shenanigans?  You get Ai chasing after Jaden with Firewall Dark Fluid.Or the one where Yusaku accidentally turns Ai into a duel spirit and it just spirals from there.
Relationships: Ai | Ignis & Fujiki Yuusaku
Kudos: 28





	The Ai-Rrival Cyberse

**Author's Note:**

> Kusanagi is Kusanagi not Kolter end of story.  
> I also might have misspelled Kuriboh a few times  
> Enjoy the madness

He's spent so much time watching the zeros, and ones go by that he was starting to see them scroll down the back of his eyelids whenever he tries to sleep. When he actually tries to get some sleep. Yusaku has never been good at getting any rest to begin with so it didn't bother him to much. 

Not when he found his solution to getting AI back. It was convoluted sure, but the bits that were scattered to the far reaches of the internet were coming in slowly but steadily. Simply enough he used the data Ai used to recreate Playmakers arm to draw them in. It was such a strange weird method but as a last resort it worked well. 

Watching Ai come back together like this was similar to watching the world's strangest puzzle put itself together. Byte by byte the Ai's Ignis form was reconstructed on his computer practically of its volition. Which gave Yusaku time to figure out how he'd keep Ai from catching any unwanted attention so that they could avoid the horrible futures his partner predicted again and again. 

Of course his current theory is as strange as his method to getting Ai back together is, but it might work well. He just had to figure out how to cross the Ignisters and his own deck if he wanted to put The Arrival in it.

'70%'

'80%'

Almost there now. Hopefully, Ai wont complain to much about his new limited condition. 

100% Ai's Ignis form was completely reconstructed and then twisted into the form of a card. In a few minutes Yusaku printed out a physical copy for himself. 

Time to see if it works. He put the card on his outdated duel disk and watched it create a hologram for the first time in years. 

Out popped Ai's soltis form minus the markers instead of The Arrival's normal form. The incredibly confused AI blink a couple of times perplexed. “Yusaku why am I a hologram?”

“That's your first question? I go through all that hard work to get you back after that nonsense and your first though is why you're a hologram!” He replies crossing his arms across his chest. 

“I mean I have an attack point meter that keeps changing position every time I move,” Ai says pointing to the box hovering over the floor next to his foot.“And I have a question mark for attack points too! What kind of horrible card did you write me into?!” 

“The Arrival.” Granted Yusaku still had a grudge against the card, but he doubted Ai would have wanted to be a Doyon like he originally planned. 

“What!” Ai gawked at him for a second before pouting. “Why not pick something easier to summon like Dark Templar?” 

“You want to be used as a duel monster?” He's probably never going to need to play Ai considering he doesn't really plan to duel anytime soon. Or ever again if he can help it. 

“Sure why not, I knew you'd pull something to bring me back I just wasn't expecting for you to pull it off or put me in card,”Ai says with a shrug. “I wonder?”

Ai flashed purple for a second before turning into the real Arrival. Or as close to the real one as the hyperactive child could be. There's something surreal about watching the monster that once loomed between him and Ai do the can can around his small room. 

'Thud'

The idiot rammed into the far wall causing the hologram to temporarily short out. Ai reshaped in a few seconds and running a hand through his hair, grinning sheepishly. Yusaku put his head in his heads. Oh god what has he done?

He snatched the card off the disk before looking back at Ai who was still there. Mostly transparent but still there. How?

“Umm, I know that things outdated but how come I'm still here?” Ai asks staring at the card in his hand. He didn't have an answer for that. 

“Am I going to be stuck like this?” Ai frowns glancing down at himself. Then he flickers out. 

“AI?” he says getting up to see if Ai was somewhere else in the room but there was not trace of him. Some small part of him was starting to worry he lost the idiot again but he shoved it down to try to figure out what happened. 

“Yes?” A certain annoying gremlin appeared over his shoulder with his eyes resembling a mischievous smile. Yusaku jumped at the sudden noise. Still it was relieving to see Ai again, so he ignored how annoying the trick was. 

“While if you don't like that how about this!” Ai flings out his arms and Link kuriboh appeared next to him. Damn Ai knows Yusaku has a soft spot for the strange little creature...wasn't it jealous of Ling kuriboh?Oh god his life is turning into a high school drama?

Why was he seeing the Kuriboh or Ai for that matter if neither was on a duel disk? Maybe it's his link sense? It would be a reasonable answer considering it has a habit of pulling weird shit on him. Maybe this was just another weird side effect?

“Hey Yusaku!” 

The next morning:

“No, you can't come to school with me. You're a menace that would spend the day trying to distract me,” he replies for the tenth time that morning. 

“But I promise I'll be good,” Ai pleads with those buggy puppy dog eyes of his and yet he should know that would never work on Yusaku. 

“No.” He doesn't need Ai floating around testing what form he can take while he's trying to get through physics. 

“How come he gets to go?!” Ai shrieks frantically pointing an accusing finger at Link kuriboh. 

“Because he's not going to complain that he's bored half way through my first class.” though the little creature was smirking at Ai so maybe he should just leave them both here. Seriously what has his life turned into that lead to him having to smooth things over between the huffy Ai and the strangely jealous Kuriboh? 

“Try not to get into any trouble alright.” he says before going out the door leaving Ai and his crocodile tears behind it. He wanted to bring Ai, but the idiot would have gotten bored after a few minutes and right now he's on thin ice with most people including the school administration. 

A week later

Two pesky golden eyes were following him around the truck as Yusaku went about working on peoples' orders or tidying up. He caved very quickly when Ai stopped playfully messing around to tell him, that he missed everyone. Ai wasn't visible to anyone, but him and it sometimes made Yusaku think he'd developed some kind of psychosis. Being forced to kill someone close to him a second time without an immediate way to bring him back? Psychosis completely reasonable...or would have been if he hadn't seen Revolver riding the Cracking Dragon while he was in the real world or dealt with practically human AI that had their own world.

“Yusaku when is your shift over?” Ai asks bored. Yusaku can't answer him because Kusanagi was lurking around somewhere. “Come on Yusaku we're alone around an empty cafe!” 

He points to the brunette walking up to the cafe window. Ai pouts before glaring at the person approaching the window. 

“Hey can I have a hot dog?” the stranger asks with a big cheery fake smile. 

“Sure.” He started working on the order as Ai gets up still sticking his tongue out at the stranger. 

“Your hair looks like Linkkurboh's cousin! How do you even get hair that puffy naturally?”Ai raves on and on about the customers hair until he stares directly at Ai. 

“Maybe I should add a winged headband, then I could be Winged Kuriboh!” 

“AHH!” Ai shrieked scrambling across the counter trying to get away. “Yusaku he can see me!”

“You can see him?” He asks using his tongs to point at Ai who backed himself into the side of the truck. Maybe he's not crazy then. 

“Yes,” says a sharp voice that didn't belong to the stranger. Standing off to the side of his left was some kind of demonic creature with mismatched features. Ai quickly hopped into the truck and stood between Yusaku and the two. Overprotective idiot what is he going to be able to do?

“You're a level monster?” The stranger stared at Ai's human form confused.  
“Level what?” they both exclaim. Ai glances over at him like he thinks the two are crazy. 

“You know like a Silent Magician? Or Kuriboh? ...Umm ok Well how about this I'm Jaden Yuki and this is Yubel,” Jaiden says resorting to introducing himself and the creature instead. 

Then the smell of burning hot dogs caught everyone's attention. While Ai freaked out behind him, he got to work cleaning up the grill. 

“Jaiden, do you really think it came from these two?” the demon inquires in a low voice, but he can still hear it over Ai shrieking. It gives them a quick disbelieving look before the stranger answers. 

“Yep! I just think they might need some help figuring stuff out.” 

“I think they need a different kind of help.”

“Hey! Ai heard that!” 

Yusaku has to resist the urge to facepalm listening to them. How did he always get stuck with crazy people? Or whatever Yubel was supposed to be. He turned off the grill and offered the stranger his hotdog. 

“Thanks! Umm what's your name?”The stranger...Jaiden is what he said his name is right?

Of course Ai made a show of introducing them. The idiot wrapped his arms around Yusaku possessively. “I'm Ai and This grump is Yusaku.”

“Cool! So Yusaku you see an more duel spirits around?”Yubel rolled its eyes at their companion's insistence. 

He stares at them for a second. Did he mean Ai or Link kuriboh? “Duel spirit?”

“Yeah, like floaty translucent creatures like Yubel or Ai?” Link kuriboh decided to make itself known with a loud noise. 

“Like that, Aww he's cute-eepp sorry not cute, not cute!” The aggressive Link kuriboh glared at the two. Yubel spread its wings out to and glared back at the much smaller creature leading it to look to Yusaku for help. 

“So that aside I haven't seen monsters like either of you before where are you from?” 

“Cyberse world.” The words were sharp, and Ai tightened his hold on him. Clearly still on edge with these two. 

“I haven't heard of that one, you know how I can get there? I'd love to see it,” Jaiden stops half way through what he was going to say as Ai starts growling. 

“No and you're not allowed anywhere close!” Even Link kuriboh was on guard as soon as he asked. 

“Ok, ok forget I asked, I was just curious,” Jaiden says.

Yusaku tried to pry Ai off but not quite hologram wouldn't budge. “What do you want?”

“If you want an honest answer Yubel and I go around different dimensions making sure the world is safe, usually by checking in on the duel spirits hanging around,” the stranger offers.“Sensed something weird in this town about a week ago and need to make sure everything was okay.”

“Well our city is perfectly fine you can leave now!”

“Hey I didn't mean to offend you I was just curious that's all,” somehow the stranger seemed genuine enough. 

“Fine what did you mean by sensed?” he asks. Maybe he's not the only person with a link sense...other then Ai and he's never been all that helpful at explaining half the strange things that happens because of it. 

“Ooh I can just sense when there's something weird going on. it's usually the light of destruction but not always,” Jaiden explains. 

“So it's not connected to the web?” So much for that hope. Jaiden looked at him confused. 

“I can sense odd things when it comes to technology and the web,” he admits, and Ai mumbles something about it too. “Isn't Yubel a monster from an online database?” 

“Not here,” It answers. How are they seeing it then?

“Like I said Yubel's a duel spirit,” then the stranger digs into his pocket and pulls out his deck.“See this is Yubel's card.”

Almost reflexively he reached into his own pocket for his deck. The Arrival Cyberse was right at the bottom with the rest of his extra deck. For some reason he showed it to the stranger. 

“Huh interesting design. How come you don't resemble your card?”Jaiden inquired glancing over at Ai. 

“Because it's not my card. I designed to fit into my own deck,” Ai huffs and the other teen's eyes widen a bit in curiosity.

“Then how'd you end up a duel spirit? I mean Yubel was human a few centuries ago but that's a long story.” 

“Our story is long too!” Then the weight that was holding him disappeared along with the rest of Ai. 

“What brought you to us in that case?” The stranger might be laid back and relatively open, but he's also playing nice to get information out of them. 

“He's easily distracted by duel spirits. We were on our way to check somewhere else when he spotted your companion,” Yubel answered. “Strange how he can spot something so small from far away but he couldn't find his way out of a bag.”

There was a loud deep growl from somewhere over head. Being inside the truck he couldn't see what made the noise but Jaiden appeared a little scared of whatever it was as he back away from the cafe quickly before breaking into a run. 

Yusaku hopped out of the truck to catch Ai laughing maniacally as he rode Dark Fluid after Jaiden. How was Ai pulling the rest of his cards out here? Not the questions he probably should be asking but the one he has right now.

“Yusaku something wrong?” Kusanagi asks jogging up next to the truck. 

“I'll explain later,”He shoved his apron at the man and ran after the fleeing stranger. 

“Ai stop this now!” he demands again and again as they zigzag around the city until Jaiden ends up in the dead end of an alleyway. 

He between the stranger and Dark Fluid's snapping jaw. “Ai!”

“What I'm just protecting my world and she wanted to help,” he replies petting the oversized dragon. 

“Ai send her home now!” 

“Yusaku why are you yelling at the sky?” Kusanagi asks coming into the alley. “Also did you say Ai?”

“Huh now you look like a crazy person!” Ai says smuggly. 

“No I'm going to go with the guy chasing me on a dragon is still the crazy one here!” Jaiden counters. 

A light bulb went off in his head. Yusaku could kill two birds with one stone if he just played The Arrival on a duel disk. Ai would be forced onto the field and Kusanagi would see the idiot standing there.

He turned to Jaiden. “Can I borrow your arm?” 

Not the best phrasing considering the weird look the stranger gave him but it'll have to do. He grabbed the teens duel disk and put the Arrival down. Immediately Ai vanished from on top of Dark Fluid and reappeared next to him. 

“Hey that's cheating!” Ai huffs. 

“Okay Yusaku what's going on and what is that card?” the man asks getting closer to him and the stranger. 

“He can't see me?”

“You can't see him?” he asks.

“See who?” 

“Okay can I have my arm back now?” Yusaku dropped the strangers arm. “So yeah only certain people can see duel spirits. I'm going to assume he sees the arrival and not either of Ai's other forms.” 

“What do you mean only certain people can see me?!"

“Yeah it's weird, but I've only met a few people who could consistently see duel spirits” the stranger explains. 

The vendor sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Yusaku what insanity have you gotten yourself into now?” 

“I reconstructed Ai and wrote him into one of his cards, that one actually,” he says pointing to human Ai but who's to say what everyone else saw. 

Then the man starts laughing going from a small fit of giggles to full on laughter. “Of course you did. I'm going back to work. We'll talk about this once your down with your friend here.” Kusanagi walked away from the alley still laughing. 

“Dark Fluid you can go home now,” he sighs. Today was madness, and he really wanted to go home and find a way to lock his deck up so Ai didn't cause trouble anymore. 

The dragon nodded her head and took off before disappearing. Then the hologram light around Ai vanished too leaving him translucent after he took the card off Jaden's duel disk. 

“So I'll have to catch up with you two another time,” Jaiden says running off. “I'd love to hear more about the other Cyberse monsters too!”

“YOU TURNED ME INTO A DUEL SPIRIT!” Ai exclaimed throwing his hands up in exaggeration. 

“I didn't know this was going to happen, and you seem to enjoy fooling around with the rest of my cards!”

“Actually they are happy to be able to interact with you,” Ai says moving his hands back down, “In fact Firewall wanted to come too but I told him no.” 

“Huh?” 

“Yeah I've been hanging out with them when I'm not around. Card games are freakin' witch craft I tell you! Witch craft!” 

“Sure, let's go home, I want to go to sleep,” he says. 

“Alright but look behind you first,” Ai replies gesturing behind him. 

Dark Fluid, Fire Wall, The Decode brothers, Link kuriboh, Ling kuriboh, Cyberse Magician, Cyberse Witch and the so many of the other monsters in his deck were standing behind him smiling. Or as close to a smile as a dragon or mouth less creature could. Maybe whatever was going on with them wasn't so bad. 

“Come on Yusaku let's go home,” Ai says offering out his hand. This time it didn't have any strings attached to it and he's more than happy to take it. 

The following week;

Yusaku's small apartment was overrun with different monsters. He could barely go a few steps without finding another one somewhere especially the smaller ones like Bitron who keep trying to follow him even into the bathroom. 

Somehow he'd opened Pandora's box when he wrote Ai into The Arrival but so far it had been working out for them. Ai was still finding ways to surprise him with different tricks but sometimes Yusaku sees Ai's usually happy deminer fall when he thinks Yusaku's not looking. 

With Ai hanging around his room watching something while he worked on homework. He decided now would be a good a time as anything to find out what was bothering him. 

“Ai?” 

“Yes?” He replies glancing over at him from the bed. 

“Are you okay with being like this?” 

Ai sat up to look at him and he looked away nervous. “Yeah, why do you ask?”

“I don't think you're completely happy about this,” he says, and Ai grabs his arm and yanks him onto the bed to sit down next to him. Before wrapping an arm around his shoulder to pull him in. Ai's always been touchy, but it stopped bothering him along time ago.

“Don't worry about it Yusaku. It's just taking awhile to get used to this. I wasn't expecting to come back after that...but here I am and sometimes I still worry about that sometimes but it's nice living with the Cyberse monsters and with you,” Ai says giving him a squeeze. 

“I'm sorry Ai,” he whispers. It hurt having to fight Ai but watching him disappear felt closer to having his heart being ripped out. So he decided to spend all of his time to bringing him back without thinking much of how Ai would feel about it. 

“Oh, Yusaku please don't cry,” Ai quietly says using a finger to wipe under his eyes and placing a kiss on his forehead. “I'm sorry too for putting you through that. I really thought it was the only way to keep you safe.”

They ended up crying for a few minutes until the ever jealous Link Kuriboh came out and shoved Ai away from him. Even having Ling kuriboh couldn't keep it away. Yusaku could help smile at Ai pouting about how pushy the little creature was being. 

Maybe this wasn't such a bad idea after all.

**Author's Note:**

> It's kind of funny when i wrote Synthesis I had Yusaku describe Ai as a ghost but Ai's more of ghost in this one then he was in that considering the limitations and all.  
> I'm always a little iffy when it comes to using monsters as characters but I seem to have a thing for using tropes that bother me and i thought this was a fun idea so lol hell i have my own trope of doing the whole 'and they have an mushy conversation at the end' thing


End file.
